Rachel's Dream again

So what in the world is this???? It is a picture taken from above to show Rachel's Dream as if you were sitting in the limb of a tree looking down at Mother Earth painting the flowers. Why am I showing this? Well, I have some exciting news. Last night I got an e-mail and a phone call from a reporter from This Week Westerville which is our local community paper. She asked if she could do a feature article about me & my beaded dolls. You know I said yes! So tomorrow afternoon she & a photographer are coming to do an interview with me about Rachel's Dream & my other beaded dolls. We chatted on the phone a bit & when she asked me what was my influence while working on this challenge, I told her about how I'd been interested in Rachel Carson ever since last year when I was working on a Global Warming doll. I gave her a quick little talk about Rachel & how to me she is the Earthen Mother of the Enviromental Protection Movement, and how our world is a much much better place due to Silent Spring.

SO....I had to clean up my studio which was a disaster after this past week of the magazine article & teaching two classes. Dogs were major stink! so they all got baths & of course, my gray was showing...so now a quick color for me. Whew...I'm excited & can't wait to see their expressions when they see all my beaded creations.

On another note...my baby brother closed on his new house today. YEAH! He has to be out of his old house by Saturday at noon. Looks like my SIL won't be cooking a thing this year.

New doll for publishing

So here is the doll for the March issue of Doll Crafter & Costuming...whew! I have never done a doll so fast from start to finish. Thank goodness I actually can live up to my blog name. The new editor asked me if I could share a beading technique with the readers...naturally I said yes, but I only had 14 days not including time to ship to them. I tried several new patterns which were dimensional, but Chris reminded me that I should simplify things and instead of trying to teach the whole shebang, to concentrate on only a few things. So I pulled out an old "pancake" pattern from my folder of doll forms that work for me, and started there. I actually got to play with a few new products that I learned about while at the Bead Unique Retreat. I really love the Wire Lace and decided to not encrust the doll's body with beading, but to use this wonderful product. Then the face (I made this BEFORE) & became sensitive to the product, but I love the product so much. I'm going to let Chris do all the Magic-Glos work for me. And can you believe...ME making people sew individual pieces to make the fabric skirt. Let me repeat that...Fabric skirt! Not beaded...fabric. Yep, I'm laughing too...who would ever believe I'd sit in front of "Hal" and make wee bitty fabric leaves. HAH! The beading techniques for the article is the hair which I just adore. Nice close up picture too. It is with my old Nikon CoolPix 950. People at work laugh because it is SO BIG...but it takes awesome close up pictures to be so old. I used the bead mix soup that I bought from Beki from Whim beads. And I also wrote about doing a single bead edging technique. Chris has come up with brand new 3-D graphics for me. I'm hoping to get him to digitize all my graphics for the future...can you tell that is a hint! But here she is Blossom for Spring!

Ideas on how to bead faces

BIRTHDAY!

Today is my Baby Brother's birthday. He turns 40 today! I still remember the day he was born. I was 15 3/4 so technically almost 16 when he was born. I came home from school & my Mother was in labor. She could not wait until my Dad came home to take her & I really couldn't drive yet, so she & I took a taxi to the hospital. I'd called Daddy before we left & he got there after they took her back to the labor room. I was there when Victor was born. He was a blessing to me. I loved him from the very first moment I saw his little face. I held him & took care of him when Mo
m was sick. I rocked him to sleep when he was fussy. He cut his first tooth on my cheek bone. I dressed him in funny outfits. I listen to him sing in from of the mirror standing on the steps so he could see himself. I had him come up to visit me when I was in college (his first bus ride all by himself). I took him to see the "REAL" Santa at downtown Lazarus in Columbus. I took him on vacation with us camping & then to Mammoth Caves where he & Chris talked about the hang gliding rats & dared each other to stick their hands in the holes. I took him out on his 21st birthday to get his first zombie! I met his beautiful girlfriend who became his lovely wife. I watched him hold his first daughter in his arms beaming. I watched him with his second daughter, first son, and second son. I helped paint his new house. Did I say, that I've loved him from the first moment I saw him??? I do...love you Victor every single day now and forever.

The first picture is of Vic & I at his first birthday. I bought those cute little bibs for him. We were at my Aunt Rosie's house & that is her dog Curly.

The second picture is of Vic on his 3rd birthday. I was away at college at the time & Mom sent this to me. I missed him so much. I had this picture on my bulletin board so I could see him every day. Wasn't he the cutest! and now he's 40.

Time to Vote!

Yes! It is time to vote for the bi-annual Land of Odds Beaded Doll Challenge online. I just got the official e-mail from Warren letting me know it is all on-line & ready. So here's my plea to you all who follow my blog or like to read some of my crazy thoughts. Please go to this link & vote for Rachel's Dream or one of the other dolls that calls out to you.







This doll was a big project for me & it took me about these past two years to think about what I wanted to achieve with the theme Earthen Mother, and how to accomplish what I had planned. I started with the idea to dedicate this doll to Rachel Carson who I think is the Earthen Mother. Without her book, Silent Spring, our work would be a completely different place than we now live in. I remember pollution so bad that children were not allowed to play in the school yard during recess & yes! I never saw stars until I was 8 years old when we drove cross country from Los Angeles to Ohio. It was shocking for me sitting on a bunch of Lava rocks there in Arizona looking up at the sky & seeing all those blinking white crystals starring back down at me. I asked Daddy what they were. He was stunned that I didn't know, but they looked nothing like the stars I'd seen in coloring books or drew in school. Garbage lined the highways where ever your went. We lived in an agricultural area back in the early 60s & yes! when the planes dusted the fields, we were outside watching them swoop and glide over the fields. I was so afraid of nuclear bombs destroying our world, but there is was anyway tiny "time bombs" of pollution falling from the sky, in my food, in the water I drank,in the grass I played upon.

Please join me in honoring a woman who truly is our Earthen Mother-Rachel Carson

I'm a lucky girl!

I just downloaded my e-mail & saw that I was the lucky winner from Beverly Ash Gilbert blog's give away. Waahooo! I'm doing the lucky girl dance. If you ever get the itch to see some lovely eye candy and photographs that will just blow your mind, check out Beverly's blog. I bought her color wheel book & can't wait for her new book to come out as it is about "Colorways" and do I ever need help on learning color theory. I was talking to Roxie over at Byzanitum one day commenting on how I need to work on this goal & she told me that she'd been to Art school & it still was a goal she was working on. She said that it was one of the hardest things to wrap your head around. Oh no, but I'm going to try & can't wait for Beverly's book.

On BAD we are doing the stuffed animal challenge. I've had so many things to do that the beanies that take me a week to complete are on the back burner. I only have this much done after a month, but I've been busy with other things. I was hoping to do a tutorial on how to bead the faces on stuffed animals, but every single blasted picture I took was out of focus. Do you think I need to study my camera a little more? Probably not as I was downstairs in the studio where it was dark. I was too lazy to bring out the lamps & see...I really need the lamps. Oh well, hopefully tomorrow or I could always whine & Chris might do it for me...hint, hint.

And I finished all the projects from the Bead Unique Retreat classes. I finished Sherry's pendent kit while in class & even though everyone told me I cheated (I used three beads instead of two while doing embroidery), I still had it done & wore it out of class. I got Marcia's bracelet done while at the airport waiting for my plane to take me from Denver to Columbus (very very long delay), but it was Beki's necklace that had me slowed down. You see, I have this mental thing about peyote...and it does take a while to make a 27 inch twisted herribone chain. BUT I'M DONE!!!!!!

What did I learn from the classes at the Retreat. Well, first...I love Sherry! Wish she lived closer, but you know Pittsburgh is only 3 1/2 hours away! I also bought two more of her kits & have one 1/2 done. Between Marcia's instructions & her wonderful book (Beaded Opulance) I was able to conquer RAW (right angle weave), and have to fight people off when I wear the bracelet as they want to buy it off my arm. Usually I sell things, but NOT THIS ONE! Marcia's ease with teaching got me to buy more kits to try my hand at more RAW projects. Beki really challenged me in Twinkle Twinkle, but Beki lovely...I won the peyote challenge! Now for some reason I ran out of some of the beads, so I improvised a bit. It isn't perfect & when I do it again (notice I said I'd do it again) I'd try to get the twinkle stars in a nicer pattern. I love the twisted herribone...can't believe I've never done that before, but it was fun & I can see that as a base for some new projects. Oh...and I just adore Beki. She was one of the most hardest working women at the Retreat. She made sure we all had lots of lovelies to eat even though she herself was in pain from a back injury. Oh and Shawn taught me that I can spend enough on bead to help out with people's car payments!